Voluntarism and National Sports Organisations (Part II)

It may well be fair to conclude that the weaknesses in respect of voluntarism within national sporting organisations in the country (identified in Part I of this particular issue – Friday 9 February 2007) would account for the feeling among many that voluntarism is rapidly declining among them in Vincentian society today. Increasingly volunteers are finding their experience of voluntarism within sporting organisations to be quite poor and at times, very frustrating. Some think that at the beginning the experience was very good but that as time wore on it had depreciated significantly.

A significant proportion of volunteers seem to think that their experience of voluntarism is poor or frustrating. In St Vincent and the Grenadines only the NOC, the Football Federation, Tennis, Cricket and Squash Associations employ staff. In all cases they are responsive to volunteer Executive Members who direct their operations. Despite the workload of several of these national sporting organisations they still shy away from employing a Chief Executive Officer and more qualified and competent staff in order to better meet the requirements of modern sports management. This fact therefore places more reliance on the inputs of volunteers who are unable to accomplish many of the assignments on time and in a manner deemed appropriate by modern administrative standards. The result is increased frustration among volunteers even as the organisation experiences slothfulness relative to the broader sports development process as per their respective International Federations.Coaches Development
Since gaining affiliate status with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) the NOC has facilitated several Olympic Solidarity-sponsored Technical Courses here. This resulted in every national sports association of an Olympic Sport receiving at least three such Technical Courses for coaches with scores of coaches receiving training at one level or another. Unfortunately it has been a constant complaint among affiliates of the NOC that everyone, without exception, experiences great difficulty in getting more than 5% of those trained to actually take to the field and put their acquired knowledge and skills to use for the benefit of the nation. National sporting organisations have been unable to develop appropriate strategies to facilitate the comprehensive review that this reality necessitates if genuine development is to take place.